


Fold Boston In His Heart

by Anonymous



Category: Captain America (Movies) RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe(ish), Boston, Christmas Lights, Declarations Of Love, Internal Monologue, M/M, Misunderstandings, Out On The Town, Pining, Revelations, Stream of Consciousness, impressionistic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 01:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2833121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Sebastian makes it better. Sebastian makes him feel like he can take on the world and the thoughts might not consume him. And it’s a blissful, endless thing that Chris has never known before, not like this, because where his own head’s been known to drag him under, he’d never before had a better place to drown instead: eyes like the River and Walden and the sky where it kisses the Cape, water cleaner and clearer and brighter than he’s ever known, and that’s the trouble, really. That’s where it all gets tripped up.</p><p>Because as much as Sebastian makes it better, as much as he is fresh air and cool rain and the warmest part of a sunset lingering over the Bay, breaths of a sweetness that has no name, as much as Sebastian is the extra trill in Chris’ pulse that makes him dizzy sometimes, most times, and it’s brilliant and terrifying, makes him feel alive and on the brink of coming undone all the time, all the <i>fucking time</i>, but.</p><p>As much as Sebastian makes the world lighter, <i>sharper</i>: Chris isn’t sure that he manages the same for him, in return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fold Boston In His Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/gifts).



> For [luninosity](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity), who writes some of the most sensuously, lusciously indulgent prose--you have this gorgeous tendency to pull from places and scenes in your descriptions. And it grounds the story so well in the locations that shape it, indirectly or otherwise. And so, while reading one of your stories (or really, more like _all_ of your stories, you have to understand that I devour them so rapidly, I'm rarely more excited to see an author notification in my inbox than when it's one from you). But, reading your stories, I started getting ideas about places, too, about trying something purposefully atmospheric, something that was focused on those same kind of...lucid, passing, but really poignant descriptions you use, taking those and turning them into the thrust of the plot--or really, taking them _instead_ of a firmly-defined plot. 
> 
> And with all that in mind, this is what came about. The characters themselves are purposefully amorphous--no real identifying qualities are involved, and professions aren't ever mentioned, hence calling it AU-ish, so...choose your own context, really. And I hope that speaks to the inspiration of scene over anything else: the feelings and the impressions are much more the main characters here, followed closely by the city herself. 
> 
> But anyway, I hope this tiny, silly, plotless, unedited pile of impressionistic rambling is maybe to your liking. Happy Holidays :-)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> The title is from [Emerson](http://www.poetry-archive.com/e/boston.html). Native son and all that.

In the wide world that is anywhere...let’s say west of 95: saying that he’s from Boston is just fine. It really is. And Boston’s where he came into the world, so that’s gotta count for something. Because he loves his city. He loves the people. He loves the Sox and the Pats and the goddamn Bruins. He still drops his r’s like any good son of the Commonwealth. 

Or, well. Parts of the Commonwealth. The part he’s from. Right.

The reality, though, is that Chris did not grow up in Southie, or Back Bay, or anywhere that’s even remotely _Boston_ -enough for the Bostonians who give a shit about that sort of thing. And true, Chris has spent a lot of time downtown for one reason or another over the years, but that doesn’t mean he knows it like the people who live and breathe it every day. That doesn’t mean he’s seen it all, and that used to eat at him, a little. Made him feel like he’d failed something, like he’d had the Hub of the fucking World in his backyard and he couldn’t even bother to give it its due, to memorize how it breathed when the river froze around it, when the flowers came out after winter broke, when there was dancing in the streets in July, anything, any of it. It was like spitting in the face of the Mona Lisa or something, the fact that he could genuinely count all the times he’d been to the MFA, or the Gardner, that he hadn’t lived in the museums and soaked them up until he couldn’t tell his visits apart. It felt shameful, sometimes. Like he’d got this opportunity for no good reason, and he’d told it to fuck off. Or something.

So he’s never actually been to the A.R.T. Which is a fucking travesty when he thinks about it too hard. It leaves that sour taste of guilt on his tastebuds, bitter enough to prompt him to buy a burnt-tasting coffee from the Dunks inside the T Station on the Square, where he stands, sips, watches the hanging LED signs telling him when the next Red Line Train to Alewife’s gonna dock. Because one of them is carrying Sebastian: one of them is bringing him in from the airport and Chris had wanted to meet him there, to hover at the arrivals gate with a sign in his own thick scrawl that spelled a name but would somehow read something bigger, something _more_. Because hell if Chris could keep the tightness eating at his chest from spilling out into the words, even if he didn’t have to speak them. Hell if Chris was that goddamn strong when it came to his own idiot heart.

Sebastian had insisted it’d be smarter to meet in the Square, however-- _’you’ve got the tickets, and my flight’s gonna be pushing it as is. I’ll grab the train and I’ll meet you there and we’ll cut traffic out of the equation, yeah?’_ \--and that had made sense. Except now Chris is trying to figure out why in the hell he didn’t get the Silver Line into Logan himself, didn’t ride back in with Seb and stand too close and sit too near because it’s close enough to rush hour that space’ll still be tight, and their bodies would have every excuse to touch every time they so much as breathed. What the _fuck_ was Chris _smoking_ when he decided not to be there, decided not to soak up every possible moment with the man that he...

Chris orders another fucking coffee, like a fucking idiot, because the caffeine only really makes him jittery when he’s already on edge, and he _is_ already on edge, and no it’s not smart to push that envelope, thank you not at fucking _all_. He deserves it, though. He deserves the unsettling rush like a smack across his knuckles, because he’s a moron. He’s a fucking rude, thoughtless, self-involved dipshit and--

“Breathe.”

Chris shouldn’t sink into the touch--arms on his own, wrapped up from behind him, breath just at his ear like honey on his tongue--he shouldn’t sink into the touch he cannot see, but he knows it. He knows this.

That’s his own fucking _heart_ wrapping up from behind him.

“You okay?” Sebastian asks him, casual. Concerned but not overbearing. He props his chin against Chris’ shoulder, and it takes everything Chris has not to give in to the shiver that wants to shoot down his spine at Sebastian’s breath against his jaw.

“Yeah, just.” Chris breathes out, lets himself sink into Sebastian’s heat just a little once he’s steadied himself enough to trust that he won’t go too far, give too much away. “Fine, yeah. Just in my head.”

He feels the tiny quirk of Sebastian’s lips against his skin as he hums. “Dangerous place.”

And yeah. Yes. Sometimes it is.

Sebastian presses a quick kiss to the stubble just below Chris’ ear. “Good thing I got here when I did, then.”

Which, yes. Hell fucking _yes_ , it is. Because Sebastian makes it better. Sebastian makes him feel like he can take on the world and the thoughts might not consume him. And it’s a blissful, endless thing that Chris has never known before, not like this, because where his own head’s been known to drag him under, he’d never before had a better place to drown instead: eyes like the River and Walden and the sky where it kisses the Cape, water cleaner and clearer and brighter than he’s ever known, and that’s the trouble, really. That’s where it all gets tripped up.

Because as much as Sebastian makes it better, as much as he is fresh air and cool rain and the warmest part of a sunset lingering over the Bay, breaths of a sweetness that has no name, as much as Sebastian is the extra trill in Chris’ pulse that makes him dizzy sometimes, most times, and it’s brilliant and terrifying, makes him feel alive and on the brink of coming undone all the time, all the _fucking time_ , but.

As much as Sebastian makes the world lighter, sharper: Chris isn’t sure that he manages the same for him, in return.

That doesn’t mean that Chris thinks Sebastian doesn’t enjoy what they have, what they are. Whatever they are. Sebastian comes to him, and he goes to Sebastian, and that smile isn’t a thing that knows how to lie. Those eyes are bright and warm and shining out constellations in glorious succession, black holes cast limitless against the bleed of the sun and Chris would fucking fall into them and never regret the losing if the gaining was _this_. He wouldn't, because when they catch eyes across a room, when they fall into bed with a playful _D’ya wanna?_ and lie breathless and chest-sore for gasping lungs and racing hearts--when the question is asked they _have sex_ , they _fuck wild_.

But when Chris answers in his own head, it’s always _make love_.

There. That right there. That’s where it stumbles, that’s where it falls and the pieces cut him hard, because those doe eyes with the perpetual crinkle at their corners, like everything is entrancing and joyful even when it’s tragic, those eyes look at him with affection, sure. They look at him with humor. They look at him with want, and Chris wouldn’t trade that for the world.

Yet for all the things that Chris can’t read in those still pools of moonlight in the cold, he knows, he _knows_ that love’s not one of them. Chris knows that where he’s drowning, hard and fast with nothing to hold to and no will anymore to escape it, Sebastian’s standing on dry land. Both feet on the ground.

It’s less the fact that he can’t see it, more the question of whether he ever will--it’s that uncertainty, it’s that nightmarish possible future where Sebastian never grows to feel any deeper, to want any longer. That’s what pulls tight knots in Chris’ stomach, and digs in hard nails against his heart. It’s nobody’s fault, either, because Sebastian is here, and Chris should hold to that instead of wallowing, his pulse going sick for the wanting, the pining, the force of his heartbeat still caught up in a promise of _me too, yes, yes always, all of me, it’s yours, I love_\--

He shakes himself back to the surface. Anchors himself in Sebastian’s arms where they’ve moved to wrap around his neck, to draw him closer, rocking him steady in the rhythm of Sebastian’s lungs, back and forth with his breath.

 _That’s_ something, he reminds himself. Sebastian is here. With him. And Chris got lost in soft places of his own self where it hurts to be, to know, but Sebastian hadn’t flinched. Had stayed. Had held.

That has to mean something. That has to _count for_ something.

“How was the...” Chris starts, trails. Goddamn it.

Chris breathes in, deep, lets those nails cut sharp. He needs to get his shit together.

“The subway?” Sebastian asks. He turns Chris toward him just enough that Chris can make out the quirked brow in his voice spelled plain upon his face.

“The flight.” Chris deadpans, rolls his eyes--like the subway’s worth asking about, unless they’re going back to the argument for why Chris is a fucking jackass and didn’t take it with him. Didn’t sit beside him. All that extra time pressed flush, only able to breathe if they’re touching, every inhale brushing bodies against one another...

“Fine.” Sebastian shrugs, moves like liquid, floats on the tar-scuffed ground of the station as they go to climb the stairs. “Quick, y’know. As usual.” 

Sebastian inches them away from the stairs at the first platform. Leads Chris toward the escalator and steps on in front of him. Turns his back to the surface and grins as Chris as he looks down at him, framed by the lights of the Square as they rise, rise, rise. As Chris’ heart trips, skips, pounds.

God, but Sebastian’s gorgeous.

“Right.” Chris exhales. “Yeah.”

“So.” Sebastian reaches for Chris’ hand like it’s a given, like he doesn’t have to think. Not that he should, not that he has to question or hesitate, but it’s perfect that he doesn’t. And _fuck_ Chris needs to get a fucking _grip_.

“Play?” Chris tries to keep the tightness, the choke, the rapid tattoo of his pulse away from the words. And he’s lucky. Traffic’s heavy. He doesn’t think the way his voice wavers can be heard over the din of a hundred fucking morons trying to sneak through a crosswalk. 

Small mercies, he guesses. He’ll take it.

He reaches into his pocket and offers the tickets to keep from having to speak again just now. Sebastian’s hand is warm in his. Sebastian’s skin is glowing against the lights strung between buildings. His smile catches colors and starlight and the beat of Chris’ heart, plays against it gorgeously. Flawlessly. Gently to the point of breaking.

Sebastian doesn’t stop grinning as he takes on of the tickets from Chris’ hand and looks it over.

“What does it stand for?” he asks, gesturing to the words on the ticket, the performance they’re booked for: _O.P.C._

“Hell if I know.” Chris shrugs. “Eve Ensler, though. I’ve heard good things.”

“And you’ve got good company.” Sebastian bumps his shoulder. “What could go wrong?”

Chris, in his mind, makes himself small,concentrates himself into just a square inch and lives, wholeheartedly, in the points of contact between their arms. Between their palms as they walk. There are lights above them, and stars above those that can’t be seen, not here, but Chris doesn’t need them.

So long as Sebastian stays, and it’d be enough, he thinks, more than enough to have his laughter, his softness, his quiet philosopher-king consideration of the cosmos. The way he watches Chris’ chest rise and fall in bed like it's significant, tells a story. As long as he stays, Chris doesn’t need his heart. Chris doesn’t need Sebastian to give more than he’s willing, more than he can bear. Just so long as he stays.

And there are stars, somewhere. But so long as there’s _Sebastian_ , Chris won’t ever need them again.  
______________________

The play’s good. The company’s better. Sebastian never leans far enough away that their arms lose contact, and more than half the production’s spent with their hands folded on Sebastian’s left knee. And it does good things, it does really good things inside Chris’ chest. The way their hands fit, just so.

It’s not intentional, exactly, that they wander after. It’s not intentional, in wandering after, that they gravitate toward the banks of the Charles where it curls, follow Memorial Drive like a treasure map, winding, and Sebastian’s head’s tilted back, eyes closed as he listens to the soft spill of water out of nothing, into itself, and if they’re following a map, this is Chris’ compass, and if Chris is the needle spinning, frantic, Sebastian is north, always north.

There’s a steady pulse in the water, in the current, maybe the wind, maybe something more primitive, more primal. Chris thinks he gets that. Chris really, really thinks that he gets that.

And it’s dark, and it’s just warm enough that the chill in the air won’t solidify, not yet. Sebastian’s wrapped in a thick scarf, Neptune blue that makes his eyes look glassy, that doesn’t so much enhance their color as underscore their light: ethereal, fairy-light and halo-sheen and breathtaking. And Chris lets himself look, lets himself drink his fill, and he should have brought a scarf of his own, should have worn a heavier coat, but even if his skin wants to prickle as the cold, it doesn’t matter because Chris is so fucking warm on the inside, he thinks it might be a crime. He thinks he’ll burn to ash and love every minute of it, if it feels like this until the end.

He blinks, belatedly, when Sebastian turns, loops his scarf around Chris’ neck from the front, leaves it wrapped around his own so that, long as it is, it pulls Chris’ chest tight against his own. And even through the layers Chris could swear he feels Sebastian’s heartbeat at the contact, swears that’s what it is because it’s such a difference tenor, such a counterpoint to Chris’ quivering, pounding, helpless heart in return, no: Sebastian’s runs a deeper current than the water on the breeze, writ in the blood and so much closer, innate.

Chris’ eyes are big, he can feel it, and his lips part and his teeth recoil from the cold. But then Sebastian’s smiling, Sebastian’s breath warms his lips and he’s kissing the tip of Chris’ nose, and there are so many layers that Chris still hasn’t reached in that mind, in that body, in that self: but Sebastian’s heart is steady, and his touch is sure, and he’s pulling Chris closer and breathing like Chris himself is the air, and his eyes are so full of things Chris can’t quite read but wants to, desperately wants to. And maybe.

Maybe there’s something. Maybe they’ll get there, to that place where they can meet as equals, where that heart’s as close as it is in this moment in _every_ moment. In the ways that aren’t physical but are so much more profound.

Sebastian leans, presses his lips lower, now, soft against Chris’ mouth. He lingers for a moment before he breathes out, sugar-kissed and shaped like his smile. “I’m thirsty.”

Chris laughs, the sound of it almost seeming to catch in Sebastian’s eyes, all starlight and cherry-blossoms dancing on spring morning tides. Chris bumps their foreheads together. Kisses him quick and hard. 

“It’s a college town, there’s gotta be a bar, or like a pub, somewhere close.”

“Don’t want a pub.” Sebastian shakes his head, and oh god, but his lashes catch on Chris’ cheek, back and forth, and it’s too much, it’s too damned _much_. “Too many people, don’t want to...” 

He trails off, but he’s glancing up at Chris like there’s a secret caught behind his lips that’s too big to hide from his eyes, and fuck, but Chris wishes more than anything in the whole goddamned world that he could read the language spoken, that echoes in those irises. He wishes that more than _anything_.

Chris breathes, and it’s a trial, but he manages. He cocks his head to the left. “There’s a Rite Aid?”

Chris doesn’t know if it counts as being entrusted with something hallowed in his man that he loves, to see the hidden depths so plain in those eyes and yet have no idea what words they’re speaking. Chris doesn’t know if that counts. What he does know, though, is those hidden multitudes are beautiful, they’re terrifying, they are revelation on the face of the deep. If only he knew what they _meant_.

Sebastian coils his scarf around Chris’ neck, leaves his own throat bare to the elements, to Chris’ wandering eyes, and Chris can’t help himself, he can’t keep himself from watching every little swallow, every bob of that Adam’s apple like an earthquake, like a shivering cloud waiting to spill something precious, something so significant it might flood the world entire.

And it’ll be okay. It’ll be more than okay because the buoyant _joy_ of it will keep him afloat. Chris believes that. Chris wants, far more than he should.

“Oh my god,” Sebastian’s voice jars him from his thoughts, half-muffled with his head stuck into the cooler as he withdraws a liter of water, lifting it for inspection. “Boston Cream Pie, are you shitting me?”

Chris squints at the bottle of Polar. “Yeah, they do flavors all the time. Seasonal stuff.”

“I want it,” Sebastian declares, unequivocally. “Like, I gotta try this. Boston Cream Pie water. I can’t even...” 

He turns to the woman behind the counter, raising the bottle high and shaking it indicatively. “Have you tried this?”

The cashier raises an eyebrow at him, shakes her head. She’s not amused, but it doesn’t deter Sebastian. It doesn’t dim that raucous, endless light reaching out and back from the end of the universe, filled with everything there is to be, to know.

“Right.” Sebastian nods, schools his features into dead seriousness. “I’m gonna do it.” 

He swallows hard, salutes Chris rigidly in resignation to the fate of flavored fucking water, and god _damn_ , Chris is in love with this idiot, this piece of the cosmos, these lights on the skyline, these depths of the Charles and the pump of Chris’ heart, wrapped into a person whose eyes are gleaming with the mad core at the center of everything.

“This is it, I’m gonna take the plunge, for…”

“One-seventy-two,” the cashier finishes for him, face blank and tone expectant.

“One-seventy-two.” He grins at her as he slides exact change across the counter and cradles his bottle of seltzer like a fucking prize, kid in a candy shop and Chris wants to lick the innocent joy like sugar from his tongue. “Creamy Boston Water in your Creamy Boston City.”

Chris chokes on the force of how he snorts, at that.

“Are you _aware_ of the things that come out of your mouth?”

Sebastian quirks a brow, unscrewing the cap of his drink. 

“Around you?” He wraps that pillow-soft pout around the mouth and takes a sip, considering it carefully against his palate before grinning and taking a longer swig. “Naw, I don’t usually bother keeping track.”

Chris wishes he could say that he takes those words in stride. God, but he wishes he could say that, but he can’t, because his chest twists up tight, and his lungs seize, and he wants that to mean so many things. He wants that to hint at the only future he thinks he’s up for seeing come to be.

Chris lets his eyes close, lets himself listen to the pounding of his heart, hopeful in ways that are foolish, so foolish, but so _strong_ that it _aches_.

He lets himself listen, though. He lets himself pretend that the rhythm knows something he doesn’t.

“Where to?” Sebastian asks as they step back into the night.

“You know...” Chris bites his lip, stares across the River at the beckoning gold of the city beyond. “You tired yet?”

Sebastian follows his gaze, and his eyes catch the lights, so far, so dim but somehow magnified, somehow living in those eyes like they were born there, like Sebastian is the life inside the darkness. Like Sebastian holds safe the dregs left by the sun when it deigns to set.

“Like, not particularly?”

It’s late, and getting later. It’s cold, and getting colder.

But Chris is in _love_ , and falling harder, and it shouldn’t be possible, it shouldn’t be goddamn _possible_.

And however much it hurts to have his whole self stretched, his whole being tested to hold the _magnitude_ of _feeling_ , he doesn’t want it to end. Not ever. 

“Fuck it, then,” Chris reaches for Sebastian’s hand, fingers stretched to brush his wrist as he pulls. “Come on.”

It takes him steps, a lot of steps, a pace and another and another twenty just the same before Chris processes the flutter of Sebastian’s pulse against his fingertips, heavy and potent and swift, rushing currents on the backs of the wind. It takes time, takes motion and distance crossed before Chris realizes that where he’s toying at Sebastian’s pulse point, Sebastian’s curled his hand against Chris’ knuckles, pressed against the closed gaps between fingers, waiting to sink in, lock tight at the first opportunity, maybe.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking.

Chris wants to test it, though. Wants to shift his hand and read tea leaves in whatever follows, wants to lend it a credence it doesn’t deserve, and he’s weak, here, like this, with Sebastian. He’s weak in the knees and in the fumble of his heart where it’s stretched too wide to feel everything, to fit all the fragments, all the pieces of Sebastian he’s been shown, trusted with--given, maybe, but then that might be too much, too broad. That might be moving too fast, presuming too much.

Chris’ heart’s stretched thin enough to do it, too. Chris’ heart’s stretched thin enough that it’ll throw itself on any one of those jagged edges and let itself tear at so much as a glimpse that Sebastian could want more, could want _him_ without an end, without a shoreline, without a pressure-point to press on for release.

“What is it with you people at the big shiny gas station signs?”

Sebastian’s stopped, water tipped to his lips, eyes trained upward, pure gold as they capture the yellow glow of the massive lighted shell and holds it, keep it for themselves. 

“Hold on, I want a picture.” Sebastian fumbles for his phone, snaps a photo straight-on and then turns, extends his arm, positions himself in the screen.

“Want me to?” Chris offers, automatic, but Sebastian just rolls his eyes.

“I want you to get over here,” Sebastian tells him plainly, and Chris is surprised, though may he shouldn’t be. And maybe Sebastian knows it, because he looks at Chris funny before he grins, exasperated, and beckons him closer.

“Come on,” he coaxes, “I won’t fucking post it anywhere, Jeezus.”

Chris takes Sebastian’s hand and leans close to him, and it’s like the world falls away, with Sebastian’s arm around him, body pressed up against his own. The world always falls away, in the face of this, of what Chris feels.

Sebastian takes the photo, slips his phone back into his pocket, but doesn’t let go of Chris’ hand.

They’re on the Bridge over to Comm Ave when Sebastian slows, so Chris follows suit. There are bicyclists and runners braving the night that pass them, but Sebastian leans against the railing and stares, and Chris doesn’t think--doesn’t _think_ to think--before he presses up against Sebastian’s back, keeps the wind from cutting through. And it’s instinct, to lean in and brush his lips, just a wisp against the base of Sebastian’s uncovered neck.

The shiver that goes through Sebastian’s body, nevertheless, is something that Chris feels from his knees to the center of his chest.

“You cold?” he asks gruffly, pulls back a little. And maybe he’s just not good at this, maybe he’s just not _enough_ \--

“No,” Sebastian breathes, and his words are frost on the air, visible and delicate and beautiful, the life of him given shape and form in the void. “I mean, it’s not _warm_ but, it’s like….”

“Brisk,” Chris offers, and the exhale he heaves presses up against Sebastian’s spine, and Chris doesn’t think it should have. Sebastian wasn’t that close to him, just a moment ago.

“Yeah.” Sebastian nods, the word more a rumble than a sound. “Refreshing.”

They stand, for a long time, and Chris can’t see the color of the water. Chris can’t see the color of Sebastian’s eyes, or the stain of his lips, or the flush of his cheeks and that’s probably fitting. All of it cast in mystery, kept far away.

But Sebastian is warm. And he’s _close_.

And it’d kill him, Chris thinks, if it wasn’t the only thing he ever wants to ponder living inside with all that he is.

“It’s kinda a long walk from here,” Chris exhales gently, eyes on the building, the skyscrapers reaching for the end of the night.

“You got somewhere better to be?” Sebastian turns, and Chris can see the size of his pupils in headlights as cars cross behind them, and god, but they’re so wide, nearly dangerous.

Chris doesn’t know how to say no, because there’s not a goddamned place that’s better than here, than _you_ , without saying precisely that and he can’t. He can’t give that away and leave all the space it takes up in his chest to gape wide, unfilled. There’s too much of himself wrapped up in that sentiment to let it go and still be able to stand.

So Chris smiles, indulgent, bolstered by the thing he won’t offer for fear of the loss, and Sebastian squeezes his hand.

“This go where we’re going?” Sebastian nods at the path of the train that bisects the road in front of them.

“Yeah,” Chris frowns. “But it’s fucking cold to just stand here and wait for it.” 

Sebastian’s face twitches, just a little, and he exhales long and smoky into the cold, and it catches in Chris’ chest like claws, like thin ribbon wrapped too damn tight. 

“We can keep to the tracks,” Chris suggests, “grab the next train that comes?”

Sebastian tilts his head, considering, but those eyes are speaking, and it’s always the eyes, it’s always those goddamn eyes. “I’m game if you are.”

“Famous last words,” Chris quips with a smirk, but Sebastian doesn’t give at the humor.

“Eh.” He shrugs, eyes toward the city, toward a brightness Chris can’t pinpoint but love the look of on his face. “There are worse ways to go.”

Chris quirks a brow. “Like?”

“All the ones where I can’t see you first,” Sebastian answers, like it’s not a question, not a thing he has to think about at all. “‘fore it’s all over.”

Chris’ ribs feel too small, Chris’ heart feels too light, and he wonders, maybe, if he’s speaking the wrong language, if he’s just been missing the syntax. If all his vocabulary is just not equipped for this, and maybe he’s overlooked the essentials, maybe--

His chest twinges, the pain of it acute. Wishful thinking.

Sebastian’s hand is still in his own, though. And Chris can reach his wrist, where a pulse beats wings at the skin.

 _Maybe_.

______________________

They get on the Green Line at Blandford. Chris panics for a moment, unsure if his Charlie Card’s got enough for the both, but Sebastian’s prepared, swipes his own and follows Chris to a seat. Chris doesn’t let himself read too much into the fact that Sebastian’s here, with him, enough to have a subway pass loaded and on-hand to follow Chris’ lead at the drop of a hat. He doesn’t let himself follow that thread, lest he get lost in the place where it leads.

Their car’s almost empty, there’s plenty of room to sit, to spread, to sprawl.

Sebastian’s near enough that Chris can hear his breaths before they happen. Sebastian’s slow about it, almost bashful--unlike him, so unlike him, and Chris doesn’t know what that means, but he’s almost shy as he leans his head on Chris’ shoulder.

The breaths that Chris can hear before they happen smooth out, relax and ease where they touch the underside of Chris’ chin.

Chris is a little bit resentful, when they reach Park Street Station, when they have to stand, and pull away. He shouldn’t be, though. Sebastian stays pressed up against his shoulder until they reach the stairs.

Chris’ mind doesn’t quite know what to make of it, either, but his mind’s a dangerous place on its own, and it’s not, just now. He’s not. On his own. So he leans right back and smothers his own head with the force of contact, the brightness of touch.

There’s snow falling, when they surface near the red line of the Freedom Trail on the ground: light, gentle, poised dancing flakes that spin in the spotlights of streetlamps for just a few short breaths, glittering before they fade. It’s exquisite.

Sebastian’s hair collects the crystals, the glistening remains they leave when they’re gone, and he’s perfect, he’s so perfect.

“Oh my god,” Sebastian says, when they come upon the lights, the Common shining bright, the gilt of the State House majestic beyond, all the trees frosted with white, the centerpiece electric, singing the body and the soul all at once.

“It’s nice, right?” Chris murmurs, close at Sebastian’s jaw.

“Nice?” Sebastian laughs, lips parted, marveling in that way that he has, that way that takes in the world and finds what’s there to be moved by, to feel in the chambers of the heart. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s fucking nice.”

Chris smiles, and lets himself be moved by this, because he thinks this might be where he fell, where he lost the heart he feels so keenly, weighed and lifted by this sight, by this feeling, by this man. This ability to watch the universe unfold in quiet and relish every moment. He thinks that might be what stole his breath and refused to relinquish the hold.

And it’s okay, he tells himself. And he thinks maybe he even believes it. To know this, to hold this is a privilege in itself. He doesn’t need-- 

“Hey Chris.” 

Sebastian’s tone is a little tight, a little tinged, imploring in a strange way that strike Chris uncomfortably, hard in the pit of his stomach.

He looks at Sebastian. Sebastian doesn’t look back. 

“I was just,” Sebastian tells the stone beneath their feet. “I was just thinking.” And Chris’ heart’s pumping hard, because thinking’s never good, it’s never _good_.

“You...I...” Sebastian falters, and Chris’ blood where it screams falters too, all fear and too cold. “I mean...”

Sebastian breathes. Chris can’t. Sebastian turns, meets Chris’ eyes. Chris can’t hold the gaze, looks down, fixes on the bounding pulse at the side of Sebastian’s throat, pronounced and shaking and demanding release.

“You know I love you.” Sebastian reaches, cups Chris’ cheek like the ghost of a touch for an instant, for just long enough for Chris to feel the tremble. “Right?”

It takes Chris a moment. It takes Chris a moment to register the words, and their meaning. To place the context in perspective, for the lens to shift so he can _see_.

And after the moment has passed, it’s like the world’s opened itself to him, broadened its lines, its edges to encompass a whole. His chest feels wider, his lungs aching for more. And Sebastian must read epiphany where it dwells on his face because he’s watching Chris, heartbroken and heartsore and fond and devoted and there are still mysteries in those eyes but the focus has sharpened, and it’s clear, now. So much is _so clear_.

They’ve been shouting from different banks of the same wide ocean, and the trade winds favored a course Chris hadn’t taken, charted waters Chris couldn’t stand, and Chris’ whole body feels the world shift, feels the clench-give of his heart change course just slightly, and it’s amazing, the difference. It’s amazing that he survived so long without knowing what _rightness_ felt like, because he feels suffused with sunlight on eventide, he can taste the dew on elm leaves and the texture of each snowflake that falls against his tongue like a lover, like gospel spelled out in a subtle lilt and a smile like the breaths held before dawn.

Sebastian’s arms are around Chris before he can blink. And if Chris’ heart is a mallet, it’s only hellbent on cracking all the lies he’s wrapped around that trembling fist in the center of his chest in order to keep it safe, in order to make it bearable that it was spoken for and given wholly and there wasn’t anything to take its place but now, Chris can feel it. He can feel the press of heat and wanting, of shaking, straining, deep rooted devotion that reaches, that pervades. And if Chris’ heart is a mallet then its only aim is to break the barriers and shake them free, so that Sebastian’s heart can slip alongside him, can be felt at every angle, with every breath and beat.

Chris gasps when Sebastian clings against him. Chris shakes when Sebastian runs fingers through his hair and whispers the words again at the shell of his ear. Chris nearly comes apart at the sensation of receiving, of space being filled: of warmth, and the press of Sebastian’s oscillating, palpitating, quivering pulse where it shimmer through the night, through Chris’ veins, he nearly comes apart.

But Sebastian clings to him, and he clings back, and they keep each other steady.

The city watches, and the lights shine, and there are stars above them somewhere, Chris knows.

And with Sebastian in his arms, he doesn’t need them. But it’s nice, nonetheless, to know that they’re there.


End file.
